OLDSMAR - Drexel Hill, who finished a determined second to Good Cheer in last year’s Longines Kentucky Oaks, heads a six-horse field for Saturday’s $125,000 Wayward Lass Stakes for fillies and mares 4-years-old-and-upward at Tampa Bay Downs.

    The 42nd edition of the Wayward Lass, to be contested at a distance of a mile-and-a-sixteenth, is one of two stakes on Saturday’s 10-race Skyway Festival Day card, with the other the 42nd running of the $125,000, 7-furlong Gasparilla Stakes for 3-year-old fillies. Both races will be run on the main track.

    Post time for the first race Saturday is 12:30 p.m.

    The $125,000 Pasco Stakes for 3-year-old males drew an insufficient number of entries to be run Saturday as originally scheduled and has been “brought back” as an extra race on the overnight sheet by the track’s racing office in an effort to attract enough horses to run it on Sunday or another future date.

    Drexel Hill, who has earned more than $500,000 in her nine-race career, is owned by Legion Racing and trained by D. Whitworth Beckman. She will be ridden by Ben Curtis. Drexel Hill followed her Kentucky Oaks performance by finishing second in the Gr. II Mother Goose Stakes at Aqueduct.

    Trainer Saffie A. Joseph has entered three fillies in the Wayward Lass, the most accomplished being 4-year-old Andrea, a multiple stakes-winner who finished third last summer in the Gr. II Charles Town Oaks.

    Another Joseph entry, 4-year-old Early On, finished second by a nose in the Gr. III Gazelle Stakes at Aqueduct, earning her a trip to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Oaks, in which she finished eighth.

    Bettors will also take a close look at trainer Michelle Hemingway’s 5-year-old mare Runaway Diva, who was the runner-up on Sept. 28 in the Gr. III Delaware Handicap.
The Wayward Lass is the seventh race on Saturday’s card.

    Meanwhile, six promising 3-year-old fillies are well-prepared to begin building on their 2025 foundations Saturday in the 42nd edition of the $125,000, 7-furlong Gasparilla Stakes. The Gasparilla is the sixth race.

    Topping the Gasparilla field are a pair of Florida-bred stakes-winners in Tessellate and Gerrards Cross. Tessellate, who is trained by for a partnership, won the Juvenile Fillies Sprint Stakes by 13 lengths on Nov. 15 at Gulfstream Park. Tessellate will be ridden by Edgard Zayas.
Gerrards Cross, bred and owned by James Chicklo and trained by Kathleen O’Connell, won the Colleen Stakes on the turf on July 27 at Monmouth Park. Sonny Leon has been named to ride.

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